🌠 - You hear something (B)
While you're exploring this train of thought, you hear a telltale clattering - the sound of many ribs swiftly rolling over branches as if they were mere blades of grass. You feel like you'll have a few moments before per appears, but suddenly per's bursting into the clearing, a looming tower of blanched bones. Per has a particularly squirmy ghost-keke clasped in a fist whom per unceremoniously dumps on the ground. Per seems to spit some sort of insult at them that you can't quite hear before turning and vanishing the way per came
After a moment, this new occupant rises to their treads and indignantly dusts themselves off. It looked like they were about to search for an escape, same as you, but you see their head jolt off to the side as if something's caught their attention. You, from your place don't see anything. Regardless, they stoop towards the ground as if picking up something. As soon as the 'something' touches their paw, there's a bright orange flash that makes you squint away even from your distance. Once you're able to look back again, you see them holding a little amber shard up in the air. This one doesn't stop shining
After boggling for a moment, you realize that several other beacons of light have split the dark clearing. One of them is coming from you. Looking down to your paw, you see the stone you found has taken on the same brilliant sheen. What's more, you're having a hard time holding onto it all of the sudden. It seems to drift towards the edges of your fingers, slipping away regardless of how you try to pin it down. You hear someone cry out and glance up to see that other shining fragments have taken to the air, one floating delicately away from each ghost that haunts the barren field
You're watching in awe as the shards rise upwards, each seeming to have a mind of its own. They're collecting in a central mass above the clearing, shining down brilliantly on the lot of you. You scarcely notice your own shard slip from your paws and swirl towards the others. You get a powerful shiver that runs through your whole body. You swear it made something in your head snap. Not in a bad way, more of an...open way. It's like your ears have been stopped up your entire life and they suddenly cleared. It feels deep, profound, and like every scale you have is standing on its end. You just can't...figure out why
The little amber pieces are putting themselves back together overhead, clinking melodically against each other as they do so. It's more like watching a very polite colony of insects rather than mysterious ghost-rocks. You try to figure out what shape they're making, but it itself seems to be incomplete. This is part of a greater whole. Yet, you sense...an end. This was your task. While you've been completing it, others were completing theirs elsewhere. You can almost feel the remaining parts out there, distant clumps of heat in the corners of your mind
Your attention is torn away with the overpowering sound of trees being rent from the ground, accompanied by hissing and howling you'd imagine only hearing in a nightmare. You hardly are able to begin to turn your head towards the din before hundreds and hundreds of hulking bones are rocketing past you, wind rushing between them as they go. The skeletal Snakekey that's been prowling the dark woods is spiraling rapidly beneath the airborne beacon, flashing per teeth and raking per claws at the thing. Yet, the lump of amber is just out of reach. It chimes on peacefully as the last of the shards tuck into their places
"NO!!" The bones shriek, both enraged and desperate "No, you can't!! The curse is at hand!
The stones aren't listening. The notes of them moving against each other have slowed. You only hear one little clink, clink, clink leisurely hopping across the surface, searching for an imperfection to call its home
"Just give up already you useless-"
Regardless of how much venom the skeleton dips per tone in, the final puzzle piece stops moving only when it can complete the whole. It does so abruptly, cutting off per words with a brilliant flash of white light. You hear per howl, a furious beast, but you can't see per anymore. Your vision is only white. It's not bright. Instead if feels...peaceful. No one's in that void with you, yet you don't feel alone. No, you've never felt safer. From somewhere deep and dark and far away, you hear a great sigh. It sounds so, so weary, but undoubtedly relived. It sounds so familiar... You should know this...
You...do know this
TL;DR: You can't find any more shards, but the skeleton brings in a new ghost-keke who finds one. All of the shards suddenly begin to glow, revealing each keke present has one. They're drifting into the sky
The shards put themselves together in the sky, but they seem to be a part of a bigger puzzle. The skeleton tries per best to stop the thing, but can't. Your vision goes white and you feel something...familiar
🌲 Conclusion 🌲
